Musicology Commons^™

Instruction, Devotion, And Affection: Three Roles Of Bach’S Well-Tempered Clavier, Rachel A. Lowrance

Musical Offerings

Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier has been analyzed from almost every angle imaginable, yet it has not often been studied from the position of discovering what forces influenced Bach while he was writing it. For example, Bach was a keyboard teacher for most of his professional years, and this influenced many of the styles and genres in which he chose to write his preludes and fugues. This also influenced his desire to gather the preludes and fugues into a unified collection. Additionally, Bach was a devout Lutheran who never discarded his religion when he sat down at the keyboard to compose. No …